Doctor Walmart Will See You Now (economist.com) 46
American retailers see opportunities in the primary-care business. From a report: With his long white coat, stethoscope, genially soothing manner and wonky eagerness to discuss "population health management" and "patient-centred" medicine, Ronald Searcy seems the Platonic ideal of a primary-care doctor. The most unusual thing about him is where he works: a compact facility complete with examination rooms, dentist's office, phlebotomy lab and X-ray room tucked into a Walmart in north-west Arkansas. Since 2019, Walmart has opened 32 of these "health centres" in five states; by the end of next year it plans to more than double that number, and expand into two more states. Walmart is not the only big company expanding its medical offerings.
[...] What do these companies see in the medical business? The answer, befitting America's Byzantine and rent-filled health-care system, is both simple and complex. The simple answer is money. Americans spend a stunning amount of it on health: roughly 18% of GDP in 2021, far exceeding the rich-country average of about 10% and more than double the ratio of some, such as South Korea, with healthier and longer-lived populations. Americans' spending is forecast to rise by 5.4% per year over the next eight years, outpacing economic growth and accounting for almost 20% of GDP by 2031. The bulk of that spending will come from Medicaid and Medicare, federal programmes that cover health-care costs for, respectively, poor people and over-65s. The complex part reflects changes in how insurers, including Medicaid and Medicare, pay for coverage; as well as changes in how consumers are willing to get it.
[...] What do these companies see in the medical business? The answer, befitting America's Byzantine and rent-filled health-care system, is both simple and complex. The simple answer is money. Americans spend a stunning amount of it on health: roughly 18% of GDP in 2021, far exceeding the rich-country average of about 10% and more than double the ratio of some, such as South Korea, with healthier and longer-lived populations. Americans' spending is forecast to rise by 5.4% per year over the next eight years, outpacing economic growth and accounting for almost 20% of GDP by 2031. The bulk of that spending will come from Medicaid and Medicare, federal programmes that cover health-care costs for, respectively, poor people and over-65s. The complex part reflects changes in how insurers, including Medicaid and Medicare, pay for coverage; as well as changes in how consumers are willing to get it.
I guess some people (Score:2)
from Arkansas have to travel a long way to get healthcare services
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Tractor Supply covers all their medical needs.
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A lot of them wouldn't have electricity if it wasn't for TVA. Heck, most of them wouldn't. It's infuriating how they vote. Especially when America's system gives them between 20-46 times more voting power than a city voter (because of how Senates work).
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Most of their hospitals were federally funded, and, well, they've been sending people to Washington who cut those funds....
A lot of them wouldn't have electricity if it wasn't for TVA. Heck, most of them wouldn't. It's infuriating how they vote. Especially when America's system gives them between 20-46 times more voting power than a city voter (because of how Senates work).
Yeah, but this hurts brown people MORE. [facingsouth.org]
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And city voters get a lot more power than hick voters due to how the House works. It's a dual system designed to keep city voters from trampolining over the rights of hicks. Usually people learn this in middle school.
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You don't understand basic math. Like division.
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While I think the things you list are good policy, you say that like Nazism and Communism never happened. Both are socialism in action and people who are scared of implementing it are not wrong.
Besides, doesn't the left have their own silly buzzwords?
If the TLE is an example... (Score:2)
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I've made the poor decision to have Walmart change my tires and perform an oil change. I can't imagine allowing them to work on my body.
if Walmart worked on your body...you should worry about the Bondo cracking and falling off in time.
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I've made the poor decision to have Walmart change my tires and perform an oil change.
That's what you get for self-identifying as a Lincoln Corsair.
Asked a doctor... (Score:3, Informative)
I asked a doctor a few days ago why first time visits with PCPs have become so hard to get, usually over 6 weeks, and he told me the main culprit was that COVID killed off a massive number of doctors. He said old doctors, working at hospitals and seeing patients non-stop during the pandemic just wiped them out.
Needless to say, I thanked him from the bottom of my heart for what he does. These people are the true heroes of the last 3 years!
Anyway, anything to ease the doctor shortage! I've also noticed a huge number of new app based prescription filling, emergent care apps over the last year or two. I even found a thing called Contingency Medical, which gave me an awesome kit full ~10 different antibiotics with essentially no questions asked. The sort of thing you take with you in the wilderness!
Not an ad, just thought it was super cool how the market is filling the gap.
Re:Asked a doctor... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless Wal-Mart is putting people through med school, they are doing nothing to help the shortage of healthcare workers.
Neither is yet another shady online pharmacy.
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Those "shady" online pharmacies make getting stuff I need far easier, as I am disabled, unable to get out to see a doctor, and most doctors won't prescribe the things I need without a recent visit and a positive lab result (which you'd be surprised is astonishingly hard to get for many, many conditions).
Anything that can help streamline the process and let doctors see more patients quicker is a damned good thing.
But no doubt some comedian will find some way to scare people about it. Then we'll have another
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Your problem is access to a doctor and home care. (Although I would think if you're capable of traveling to Wal-Mart you're capable of traveling to a doctor's office.) Until that problem - the real problem - is solved, it's going to continue to cause you issues that extend far beyond getting antibiotics.
As far as the opioid restrictions, you won't see me defending any of that drug-war nonsense. I know people who died after moving to counterfeit pills when their pain clinics shut down. Usually when I point o
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I can't drive anywhere, I can't even take an Uber, pain is far too much. Thank god for the new delivery options. Unfortunately, all the services that send an actual doctor to your home have stopped operating due to insurance / lawsuit fears. But people like me are no longer considered important.
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A few HMOs have actually started their own medical schools. It is an effective way to reduce cost of school, improve focus of training on an employer need, and provide residents for the hospitals. I doubt WalMart will be far behind if they are serious about the initiative.
But, this sounds more like a broad spectrum urgent care facility which has very different objectives.
Just competing with Minute Clinic (Score:5, Informative)
This transition is simple economics. The cost of providing healthcare is going up, which has driven out many smaller independent doctors; they now get bought up by insurance. The lion's share of that cost comes from how insurance pays: they pay per procedure or by hospital visit lumping in procedures. The problem is there are now so many things that doctors need to do that they are not paid for, like creating invoices and arguing over reimbursement for months at a time, requiring full time staff that's not reimbursed and therefore becomes overhead, or complying with state and local regulations regarding either protecting data or providing data that requires too much work; this regulation from California [ca.gov] literally drove many neurologists to shut their doors as it required 1 to 2 full time staff to stay compliant with the mandatory regulation, but it's not paid for staff.
So doctors flee to hospitals. But hospitals are designed for more intensive care; what if you have a cold, or more basic medical needs? Hospitals are very poorly designed for these kinds of needs.
So, Minute Clinic [wikipedia.org] came into business and CVS bought them. Feeling sick? Go to CVS (free parking, easier to get to), get a nurse or basic practitioner to diagnose you, then direct you to Aisle 5 for tammiflu and you're back home in an hour. Way more efficient cost-wise and better for the patient.
Wal-Mart is just late to the game, but absolutely not surprising that retail is getting into this. There's some sweet Medicare and low-grade insurance money to tap into, oh and btw while you're getting your tammiflu why don't you pick up a box of tissues, some herbal tea, and a few extra blankets in the Home Goods Department?
Makes perfect sense business-wise.
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Concierge medicine is the wave of the future. For example, right NOW, 65% of doctors will not accept new Medicare patients. Medicare for all, my ass.
Re:Just competing with Minute Clinic (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Wal-Mart is just late to the game, but absolutely not surprising that retail is getting into this. "
I have been trying to find a primary care physician for my mother for months. Every place near enough is still "not accepting new patients." Some areas, apparently including mine, simply do not have enough doctors/PA/NP/offices to handle the population needs. Offices are closing, and those left are beyond capacity.
Many of the independent places have closed because the doctors were just fed up with all the insane, ever-increasing regulations and paperwork and ever-declining reimbursement (I know because I talked to several). All that are going to be left are "network" places and "doc in a box" like Patient First, where you can't make an appointment, can't choose which doctor, wait for hours, see someone for a maximum of a few minutes (good luck if you have a complex issue), and have little continuity of care.
But hospitals or imaging centers? Oh, those you can get into immediately, all over the place. It is frustrating.
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>"And we can't have a proper medical care system because "socialism". And we are left with something that is halfed assed and costs lives."
With "socialism" (or single-payer) it would probably be much worse.
What is needed are fewer nonsense regulations, restrictions on malpractice, more non-prescription (or pharmacist-assisted) classification of maintenance medications, and most importantly, changes in insurance involvement. Insurance is what pushes the prices up more and more because consumers have litt
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With "socialism" (or single-payer) it would probably be much worse.
Why? The insurance companies are motivated only by profit. At least some of the people working for the single payer system would be there to help you.
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>"Why? The insurance companies are motivated only by profit. At least some of the people working for the single payer system would be there to help you."
Because government is typically motivated by corruption and is far more out of touch and apathetic. Any possible motivation to "do good" is not the same as the *ability* to produce good.
Motivation by profit is a *good* thing, as long as there is competition and free information. A free, capitalistic, competitive market is driven by both profit checked
It's just epically cheaper (Score:2)
The entire rest of the first world uses socialized medicine and somehow each and every one of those countries spend less per patient than we do https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . The difference isn't even close either, we're spending about twice the first world average and we're not seeing results from our system that are better in any big or meaningful way to the rest of the first world.
So in other words you can crow about the efficiencies of capitalism all you want and in many areas you would be correct
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>"The entire rest of the first world uses socialized medicine and somehow each and every one of those countries spend less per patient than we do"
Yes, spend less by rationing. It isn't just about cost, but variety of treatment, choice, speed, and quality. Socialism doesn't deliver all of those. Capitalized/free market *can* (doesn't mean it will, especially when the things I addressed earlier are in the way).
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Yes, spend less by rationing. It isn't just about cost, but variety of treatment, choice, speed, and quality. Socialism doesn't deliver all of those.
What a wonderful handwave of an argument without an ounce of supporting evidence. So tell me this, why are we not top ranked relative to other first world nations on a single one of these lists of international comparisons on healthcare?
https://www.internationalinsur... [internatio...urance.com]
https://www.commonwealthfund.o... [commonwealthfund.org]
https://worldpopulationreview.... [worldpopul...review.com]
https://wisevoter.com/country-... [wisevoter.com]
https://www.usnews.com/news/be... [usnews.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We're wealthy as fuck, we should own this shit and we dont at all and it has
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>"So tell me this, why are we not top ranked relative to other first world nations on a single one of these lists of international comparisons on healthcare?"
I already indicated that in a parent posting.
Plus, comparing us to much smaller, homogeneous countries with hardly any immigration is not terribly enlightening. And such "ratings" have wildly different criteria (some include nonsense like "equity"). In many you will find we are near top of lists when it comes to waiting times and actual care given
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Really? That's your rebuttal?
Most first world countries get large numbers of immigrants, we are not unique in that. After that, check the last wikipedia link I posted, it has all the proper data broken down by a large number of health issues to see that our healthcare system isn't anything special relative to other first world nations (it's not bad at all but it's not meaningfully better either) meanwhile we pay twice as much as anybody else for it. Unfortunately our country's "fiscal conservatives" are gen
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It actually shows the USA does a good job of outcomes, but I am not disputing the cost is [unnecessarily] higher. Only that the cost being higher is not BECAUSE it isn't socialistic (single-payer and/or single-provider), but because of many other factors we have set up (lack of realistic liability caps, over-regulation, lack of cost transparency, lack of choice, lack of consumer cost-sharing, over-patenting, over-lobbying, etc). I think it would be possible to retain and improve outcomes and, at the same
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I don't want to experiment with failed and unproven ideologies. You go find your system somewhere and experiment on people's lives. The best nations have all gone socialized medicine and make everybody else look bad; the only practical and rational move is to copy what WORKS well, not preach BS that lacks successful examples (such as the USA, which DOES ration healthcare! poorly too; unless you are rich.)
Re: Just competing with Minute Clinic (Score:2)
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Welcome to Costco, I love you. (Score:2)
Idiocracy incoming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Not surprising (Score:1)
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Sears had optical and dental services.
The optical was fairly widespread, the dental was pretty rare.
US has fewer practicing physicians per capita (Score:1)
how to cut costs (Score:2)
There are only two ways to cut medical costs: pay providers less, or reduce services. Let's hope Walmart's business model is the former.
Don't dismiss it out of hand (Score:2)
American healthcare is full of bloat. Some of it statutorily required, but some of it cya and ideological, in the sense that doctors will order tests or recommend treatments to satisfy personal or professional ideals of thoroughness despite limited utility to the patient.
An example the wife cites is recommending aggessive (and expensive) cancer treatment to patients near the end of their natural lives or near the ends of their terminal illnesses. A less contentious example she sites is running full pcr pane